Michael Clayton

I imagine the genesis of the movie was something like this: an enormously talented group of movie people are given the following challenge. Take only the most minimal set of convetional thriller plot devices, strung together so as to result in a just-tenable level of plausibility, and then *make the heck out of that movie.* Go nuts—use wonderful actors at their absolute best, give it a terrific script, make it gorgeous to look at, etc. Voila! "Michael Clayton." Clooney is all that he is said to be in the title performance. How good is he? I watched a two-hour movie in which he appears in nearly every frame, and I never once thought about how dreamy he is. I! never thought about George Clooney's dreaminess! He's great. So is everyone else, particularly Tilda Swinton in a tense perfomance that shows without telling the unique pressures of being female in a corporate environment--clothes, hair, and makeup play an understated but vital and dual role as both armor and Achilles heel.

One more thing I will say is this: if you have ever wondered just how efficiently and cleanly you could be killed in your own home, this movie will show you. Most impressive.